Comrades, my report on the activities of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, whose functions during the intervals between sessions have been performed by the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, naturally divides into two main sections: first, on international policy, on the international position of the Soviet Republic, and, second, on internal construction and the basic economic tasks. Allow me to present the main facts of our work during the reporting period in this order, that is, during the last two months.

As regards the international position of the Soviet Republic, the fundamental fact determining this position has been the successes of the Red Army. You know that the last remnants of Kolchak's army have been almost destroyed in the Far East, and between Japan and America, which are formally allied powers, ever clearer rivalry and enmity are revealing themselves, which prevents them from bringing all their forces to bear in their assault against the Soviet Republic. After the destruction of Yudenich's troops, after the capture in the south at the beginning of January of Novocherkassk and Rostov-on-Don, such a decisive blow was struck against the main part of their forces that the military position of the Soviet Republic changed in the most radical manner, and although the war has not been concluded, nonetheless it has become clear to every state that their former hopes of being able to crush the military forces of the Soviet Republic have come to naught.

Consciousness of this radical change in the international position of the Soviet Republic manifested itself in the transmission to us by radio (not officially communicated) of a decision of the Supreme Council of the Allies. This decision was adopted by them on the sixteenth of January and consisted in the lifting of the blockade against the Soviet Republic. The Supreme Council adopted a decision, the fundamental part of which reads: (reads){40}.

I have no need to criticize the diplomacy contained in this formulation—it is too obvious to warrant dwelling on the fact that the Allies' relations toward Russia have not changed. If the Allies understand their policy in such a way that lifting the blockade is not a change in their former policy, then by this very fact they demonstrate the groundlessness of their policy. But for us what is important is not the political but the economic side of this decision. The fact of lifting the blockade is a major fact of international significance and shows that a new phase of the socialist revolution has begun. For the blockade was indeed the principal, truly solid weapon in the hands of the imperialists of the entire world for strangling Soviet Russia.

At the last Congress of Soviets, I already had occasion to point out and develop the idea that the struggle against Soviet Russia not only led to workers and peasants of France, England, and other advanced countries forcing their governments to abandon the struggle, but that this struggle led to petty bourgeois masses of the population within the countries themselves beginning to develop opposition to the blockade[6]. And of course, such opposition from the middle strata within such countries as England and France could not help but exert influence on the policy of international imperialists. Knowing their diplomatic nature, we cannot expect them to act directly, without any reservations, without desire to restore the old, to sneak in their former policy by some cunning means—the policy they now cannot conduct openly. But we must say that essentially we have achieved enormous victories, and the weapon which was only in the hands of the Allies—the fleet—even this weapon we have wrested from their hands; we wrested it despite the fact that wavering elements frightened us, saying that the fleet was invincible. Nevertheless, the development of political relations showed that even this invincible fleet proved unable to stand against us. We, without having the ability to offer military resistance at sea, forced the imperialist powers to abandon this weapon.

Of course, this change in policy on the international scale does not manifest itself all at once, but the fact remains that we have come within the sphere of worldwide inter-state relations, which gives us the possibility of receiving support from more advanced countries. Of course, the economic and financial position of these countries is very dire; they are all going downhill, and we cannot count on much, but having the possibility of developing industry ourselves, we can count on obtaining machines for production, machines for the restoration of our industry. And most importantly, what completely cut us off, cut us off by means of the blockade from the advanced countries—is broken through.

After the Allied Council was forced to abandon this weapon, our victories in the field of international politics continued, and the most significant of these victories was that we achieved the conclusion of peace with Estonia. Today we received a message from Ioffe and Gukovsky in which it is stated: "Today, February 2, at 2 a.m. Moscow time, peace between Russia and Estonia was signed. The Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Birk, came from Reval for the signing."

Comrades, the text of this peace document, which has been discussed at great length and represents a document of tremendous importance, has been sent by courier, who is to arrive tomorrow morning, but we have now received the exact text by telegraph, and tomorrow it will already be distributed. It will be examined and ratified. This document is of enormous significance for us. The peace treaty of Russia with Estonia has tremendous world-historical significance, and therefore, having achieved a peace treaty with a government that is also becoming democratic and will now have firm relations with us, but which has hitherto been supported by the entire imperialist world—we must regard this as an act of tremendous historical importance.

We know that people who stand between imperialism and democracy ordinarily always go over to one side or the other. We, as you see, are undoubtedly achieving victory, because peace has been signed—and now this state must come out against our enemy. The principled significance of this fact is as follows: in the imperialist epoch the entire world is divided into a vast number of large and small states, with the small states being completely helpless, forming a negligible handful against the wealthiest powers, which entirely subordinate to themselves a number of weak small states. Imperialism created an epoch in which there is a division of the entire world, of the entire population of the earth, into a minority of countries of exploiters—oppressive countries—and a majority of countries with small, weak populations, found in colonial dependence on them.

When we achieved peace with Estonia, we proved that we know how to move forward as a proletarian and communist state. How? To all the warring powers of the Entente, which were opposed to peace, it is proved that the sympathies which we know how to inspire in our opponents and in bourgeois governments—the sympathies of a small country—are stronger than all the military oppression and all the financial aid and all the economic ties that bind this small country to the world-mighty powers. The Entente saw that we can win not only when we apply force—we are capable of refuting the lies and slander which bourgeois governments throughout the world spread against us, saying that Bolsheviks maintain themselves only by violence. How did we prevail over the combined forces of world imperialism with respect to Estonia, which has always experienced violence from tsarist landlord Russia? By the fact that we proved our ability to renounce violence in a timely and conscientious manner in order to transition to a peaceful policy, having won the sympathies of the bourgeois government of a small state, despite all the support of international capital. This is a fact of historical significance. Estonia is a small country, a small republic, but it is so much oppressed by thousands of means—both economic and military—by world imperialist capital that all of its population is under this pressure. And this peace demonstrates that we know how, despite all our exhaustion, weakness, and fragmentation, to achieve victories over the White Guard armies which they were supporting. The mighty Entente is able to respond to violence with more victorious violence, but this peace demonstrates that it is not by violence that we know how to acquire the sympathy and support of the bourgeoisie.

Here stood the most difficult international task. The development of capitalism in different countries proceeds at different rates, in different circumstances and by different means and methods. A socialist republic in one country finds itself alongside capitalist countries of the entire world and causes the bourgeoisie of those countries to waver. From this, conclusions were drawn: "This means your position is hopeless; if you conquered the White Guards by violence, what will you do with the entire rest of the world?"—We will conquer it too. That this is not mere words, the proof is the peace with Estonia. All the pressure of international capital was overcome on that territory where our renunciation of violence was recognized as sincere. International capital said: "Do not conclude peace with the Bolsheviks, otherwise we will conquer you by starvation, will give you neither financial nor economic aid." And Estonia turned out to be one of those small, formally independent countries that said to itself: "We rely more on the fact that Bolsheviks are capable of living in peace with other peoples, weaker ones, even with a bourgeois government, than on all the world-mighty democracy of the Entente."

The greatest manifestation of democracy is fundamentally on the question of war and peace. All powers are in such a state that they are preparing a new imperialist war. Workers throughout the world see this every day. Any day now America and Japan will throw themselves upon each other; England has seized so many colonies after victory over Germany that no other imperialist power will ever be reconciled to this. A new furious war is being prepared, and the masses are aware of it. But here appears the democratic peace of Estonia with Russia, with her tremendous forces, which are accused of the fact that, having finished off Yudenich, Kolchak, and Denikin, she will throw all her forces at a small state. Whereas the peace has been concluded on such conditions that we made a series of territorial concessions—such concessions as do not entirely correspond to the strict observance of the principle of national self-determination—when we demonstrated in deed that the question of borders is for us a secondary question, while the question of peaceful relations, the question of the ability to wait out the development of conditions of life within each people is not only a principally most important question, but also one in which we have been able to win the confidence of nations hostile to us. If we were able to do this with respect to Estonia, there was nothing accidental about it—it was a manifestation of the fact that the separately existing and seemingly powerless, weak proletarian republic has begun to wrest over to its side those countries that are dependent on imperialist countries, and such countries constitute the vast majority. This is why our peace with Estonia has world-historical significance. No matter how much the Entente strains its forces to begin war—even if it should succeed in replacing this peace once again with war—in any case, there remains unshakeable in history the fact that, contrary to all the pressure of world capital, we managed to inspire in a small country governed by the bourgeoisie greater confidence than the supposedly democratic, but in fact predatory imperialist bourgeoisie.

On the question of what our policy proved to be in comparison with the policy of the supposedly democratic, but in fact predatory powers of the entire world, we have, by chance, particularly interesting documents, which allow me to inform you of. These documents were delivered by one of the White Guard officers or officials by the name of Oleynikov, who had instructions from one White Guard government to deliver important documents to another, but he delivered them to us{41}. (Applause.) We succeeded in bringing these documents into Russia, and I will read them to you, although they will take rather a lot of time. Nevertheless they are very interesting, because they very clearly show the underlying mechanisms of policy. The first document is a telegram to Minister Gulkevich from Sazonov: Paris, October 14, 1919, No. 668.

S. D. Sazonov, expressing his complete respect to Konstantin Nikolayevich, has the honor to enclose herewith copies of telegrams from B. A. Bakhmetev, No. 1050 and I. I. Sukin, No. 23, regarding the situation in the Baltic provinces, for information.

Further, a more interesting document—this is a telegram of October 11 from Washington:

Received October 12, 1919. Entry No. 3346.

Bakhmetev—to the Minister.

Washington, October 11, 1919, No. 1050.

Referring to my telegram No. 1045.

(cipher) The State Department has orally informed me of the instructions given to Gedu. He is called a commissioner of the American government in the Baltic provinces of Russia. He is not accredited to any of the Russian governments. His mission is to observe and inform. His conduct should not inspire hopes in the local population that the American government could consent to support separatist movements going beyond autonomy. On the contrary, the American government hopes that the population of the Baltic region will help their Russian brothers in their common state work. The interpretation of the agreement of the allied governments with the Supreme Ruler, as set forth in my memorandum to the government of June 17, is taken as the basis of the instructions. Gedu is given excerpts from recent speeches of the president, in which he denounced Bolshevism.

Thus, the American government has communicated that its representative can issue whatever orders, but not support independence—that is, not guarantee it with respect to these states. This is what directly or indirectly shone through and could not escape Estonia's notice—that the great powers were deceiving it. Everyone could guess about this, of course, but we have documents, and they will be published:

Received October 12, 1919. Entry No. 3347.

Sukin—to the Minister.

Omsk, October 9, 1919, No. 28.

(cipher) Knox transmitted to the Supreme Ruler a message from the British War Office, in which the latter warns of the inclination of the Baltic states to conclude peace with the Bolsheviks, who guarantee them immediate recognition of independence. Moreover, the British War Office raises the question of whether the government should not paralyze these promises, in turn, satisfying the desires of these states. We answered Knox by referring to the principles set out in the note of the Supreme Ruler to the powers of June 4, and at the same time we indicated that the conclusion of peace by the Baltic states with the Bolsheviks represents a definite danger, since it will allow the liberation of part of Soviet forces and remove the barrier preventing the penetration of Bolshevism to the West. The very fact of readiness to speak of peace testifies, in our opinion, to the extreme demoralization of the parties of these self-governing units, which themselves cannot defend themselves against the penetration of aggressive Bolshevism.

Expressing confidence that the powers cannot sympathize with the further spread of Bolshevism, we pointed out the necessity of cessation of further aid to the Baltic states, which is the actual means of influence in the hands of the powers and moreover more expedient than competing in promises with the Bolsheviks, who have nothing left to lose.

In transmitting what has been outlined, I ask you to make the appropriate representation in Paris and London; we address ourselves specially to Bakhmetev.

Received October 9, 1919. Entry No. 3286.

Sablin—to the Minister.

London, October 7, 1919, No. 677.

(cipher) In a letter to Guchkov, the head of the operational section of the War Office, to whom G. turned with a proposal of our tonnage in order to facilitate the British delivery of supplies to Yudenich, reports that, in the opinion of the War Office, Yu. now possesses everything, and that England is encountering difficulty in further supplying him. He adds, however, that once we have ships, we could organize the supply of Yu. on a commercial basis, on condition that we find credits. General Radcliff acknowledges at the same time that Yu.'s army must be properly equipped, as it is "the only force among the Baltic states capable of undertaking active operations against the Bolsheviks."

Minister—to Bakhmetev in Washington.

Paris, September 30, 1919, No. 2442.

(cipher) From a very confidential Swedish source I learn that the American Minister in Stockholm, Morris, speaks of growing sympathy for the Bolsheviks in America and the intention to cease aid to Kolchak in order to enter into relations with Moscow in the interests of American trade. Such statements from an official representative produce a strange impression.

Received October 5, 1919. Entry No. 3244.

Bakhmetev—to the Minister.

Washington, October 4, 1919, No. 1021.

Referring to your telegram No. 2442.

(cipher) In the State Department they told me confidentially that indeed Minister Morris in Stockholm and especially Hengut in Copenhagen are known for their personal left sympathies, but that they have no influence or authority here and that the government is compelled to give them periodic instructions, indicating categorically that American policy is invariably directed toward supporting our government in the struggle against the Bolsheviks.

Here are all the documents which we will publish and which clearly show how the struggle proceeded around and about Estonia, how the Entente together with Kolchak, America, England and France exerted all pressure on Estonia, only so that peace would not be concluded with the Bolsheviks, and how the Bolsheviks, promising territorial concessions and guaranteeing independence, won out in this competition. I say that this victory has gigantic historical significance, because it was achieved without the application of force, this victory was achieved over world imperialism, a victory by means of which the Bolsheviks acquire the sympathy of the entire world. This victory by no means shows that general peace will immediately be concluded, but it does show that we represent peaceful interests with respect to the majority of the population of the earth against military-imperialist predators. And such an evaluation led to the fact that bourgeois Estonia, being an opponent of communism, concluded peace with us. If we, being a proletarian organization, a Soviet Republic, conclude peace, act in a peaceful spirit with respect to bourgeois governments which find themselves in an oppressed situation in relation to the great magnates of imperialism, then from this we must draw a conclusion as to how our international policy should develop.

We set ourselves the main task now: to conquer the exploiters and to attract the wavering to our side—this is a worldwide task. The wavering turn out to be a whole series of bourgeois states which, as bourgeois states, hate us, but, on the other hand, as oppressed—prefer peace with us. From this flows the explanation of the peace which has been concluded with Estonia. Of course, this peace is only the first step and will manifest itself only in the future, but that it will manifest itself—is a fact. With Latvia we have hitherto had only Red Cross negotiations, as also with the Polish government{42}. I repeat, the peace with Estonia must necessarily manifest itself, because the grounds are the same—Latvia and Poland are being drawn into war with Russia just as much as Estonia was. And this may succeed, and we must be vigilant given the fact that war with Poland is possible, but we are confident—the main conquests prove this—that we can conclude peace and make concessions which give possibility to the development of any democracy. And this now acquires particular significance, because the question with Poland stands very acutely. We have a whole series of reports that besides bourgeois, conservative, landlord Poland, besides the influence of all Polish capitalist parties, all the states of the Entente are straining every nerve to provoke Poland into war with us.

You know that the Council of People's Commissars has issued an appeal to the working people of Poland{43}. We will ask you to confirm this appeal, in order to rise up against the persecution which landlord circles in Poland are conducting. We will offer additional text to the Polish working masses. This appeal will be a blow to the imperialist powers which are trying to incite Poland against us, while for us the interests of the working majority stand in the first place.

I will now permit myself to read a telegram which we intercepted yesterday and which shows us how American capital is working to present us in a certain light and to provoke war with Poland. This telegram reads (reads). I have said nothing of the sort and have not heard anything like it, but they can lie, because it is not for nothing that they spend their capital with a definite aim of spreading false rumors. This assures them the support of their bourgeois government. (Continues reading the telegram.) This telegram travels from Europe to America, it is maintained at the expense of capitalists and accomplishes the deed by means of which they must in the most shameless manner provoke Poland into war with us. American capital is straining every effort to produce this pressure on Poland and is doing so shamelessly, representing the matter in such a way that the Bolsheviks want to finish off Kolchak and Denikin in order to throw all their "iron troops" at Poland.

It is important that we now, here, confirm the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars, and then we must do what we have done before with respect to other states, as well as what we have undertaken with respect to the forces of Kolchak and Denikin. We must act so as to immediately appeal to the democracy of Poland and explain the true state of affairs. We know very well this means of ours, which acts in the most positive manner in terms of their decomposition. And ultimately this method leads to the path we need, the path to which it has led the working population of all countries. This policy, difficult as it may be, must establish a certain principle, and we, having begun, will carry it through to the very end.

I must note that with respect to the remaining states we conducted the same policy. We proposed to Georgia and Azerbaijan to conclude an agreement against Denikin. They refused, referring to the fact that they do not interfere in the affairs of other states. We shall see how the workers and peasants of Georgia and Azerbaijan will look at this.

This policy with respect to the Western peoples was even more cautious than when it was a matter of the peoples of Russia. It touched on such states as Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and on the other hand, on a whole series of Eastern states, whose level of development is the level of development of the vast majority of colonial countries, which constitute the majority of the earth's population. They are oppressed by England, which still holds colonial slaves in its hands. If our policy with respect to Western European states is distinguished by such caution, it requires a period of time to give them the opportunity to overcome their Kerenism, then in the East, where we have far more backward countries, which were under the oppression of religious fanaticism, permeated by great distrust of the Russian people, for decades and centuries under the oppression of tsarist capitalist policy and the imperialism which great-power Russia conducted toward them—here our policy must be even more cautious and patient.

We granted autonomy to the Bashkir Republic{44}. We must create an autonomous Tatar Republic{45} and we are continuing the same policy with respect to all the Eastern peoples and say to ourselves: standing against a huge front of imperialist powers, we, fighting against imperialism, represent a union requiring tight military cohesion, and we regard any attempts to violate this cohesion as a completely inadmissible phenomenon, as a betrayal of the interests of the struggle against international imperialism. But in conducting this policy, we must be even more cautious. If European countries have to experience a period of Kerenism, then countries at a lower level of development contain even more elements of distrust. One must act toward them in a more protracted manner. We support the independence and autonomy of these states. We appeal to their working masses. We say: military unity is necessary; departure from this unity is inadmissible.

We are confident that, by systematically continuing our policy of tight union, we will achieve greater success with respect to the peoples of the East than we have so far. And these successes are great. Among all the Eastern peoples the Soviet Republic enjoys tremendous popularity for the same reason that we succeeded in concluding peace with a small Western state—precisely because in us they see an uncompromising fighter against imperialism, because we are the only republic conducting war against imperialism and which knows how to use every situation, acting not by violence, but also knows how to win by renouncing the application of violence.

It goes without saying that the same policy, in a much more developed form, is also being conducted with respect to the Ukrainian Republic. Here the question is simplified by the agreement concluded earlier between the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Executive Committee of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic{46}. On the basis of this agreement, which means a tight federation of two republics in the struggle against imperialist countries, we are building an ever tighter union. And the mass of Ukrainian peasants and workers are being convinced by bitter experience of Denikin's rule that only the tightest union with the Russian Republic will be truly invincible to international imperialism, and that state separation cannot be advantageous in the situation of the struggle against imperialism, as it uses every division in order to suppress Soviet power; such division is a crime. Our policy is taking deep root in Ukraine, and we are confident that the forthcoming All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets of Workers and Peasants will confirm this policy in solemn form. These are the small remarks to which I must confine myself on the question of international position, and those practical proposals which I must address on behalf of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, I have listed them, and I will ask to confirm all these projects at this session.

Turning to the work of internal construction, I must first of all dwell on some individual measures of our government, and then turn to the most important—the transition to new tracks, the transition from military tasks to the tasks of state construction.

As regards the fundamental measures of our internal policy which during the reporting two months stand out more or less from the series of current work, the following resolution is particularly important, which needs confirmation by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. This is the resolution on the abolition of capital punishment. You know that immediately after the main victory over Denikin, after the capture of Rostov, Comrade Dzerzhinsky, who heads the Cheka and the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, made a proposal to the Council of People's Commissars and carried it through in his department, that any application of capital punishment dependent on the Cheka be abolished. If in Europe bourgeois democracy is spreading with all its might lies against Soviet Russia, that it is above all terroristic in character, if this is spread both by bourgeois democracy and by the socialists of the Second International, if Kautsky could write a special book entitled "Terrorism and Communism," in which he asserts that communist power rests on terrorism, then you can imagine what lies are spread on this account, and in order to refute these lies, we came to the step which was taken by Comrade Dzerzhinsky and which was approved by the Council of People's Commissars, and this step needs confirmation by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

Terror was imposed upon us by the terrorism of the Entente, when world-mighty powers descended upon us with their hordes, stopping at nothing. We could not have held out for even two days if we had not answered the attempts of officers and White Guards in a ruthless manner, and this meant terror, but it was imposed upon us by the terroristic methods of the Entente. And as soon as we achieved decisive victory, even before the end of the war, immediately after the capture of Rostov, we refused to apply capital punishment, and by this showed that we relate to our own program as we have promised. We say that the application of violence is necessitated by the task of suppressing the exploiters, of suppressing landowners and capitalists; when this will be resolved, we refuse all exceptional measures. We have proved this in deed. And I think, hope, and am confident that the All-Russian Central Executive Committee will unanimously confirm this measure of the Council of People's Commissars and will decree it in such a way that the application of capital punishment in Russia becomes impossible. It goes without saying that any attempt by the Entente to resume methods of war will force us to resume the former terror; we know that we live in a time of predation, when kind words do not work; this is what we had in mind, and as soon as the decisive struggle was concluded, we immediately began to abolish measures which in all other states are applied indefinitely.

Further, I wished to note the discussion of the question of the Workers' Inspection. On this question you will have a special report, and I would be wrong to dwell long on it. Here the task of attracting broad masses to administration comes to the fore, and it stands more acutely than the tasks of broad construction. You will have detailed projects which, having discussed and corrected them, you will understand that this construction must continue with broader participation of broad working masses. This is our fundamental task; it is very difficult to approach it given the ruin which is now observed, but we move toward it unswervingly.

We also face one more question—on cooperation. We have set ourselves the task of uniting the entire population in cooperatives, which would differ from the old cooperation, which included at best only the upper strata.

Socialism would be impossible if it had not learned to make use of that technique, that culture, that apparatus which bourgeois culture, capitalist culture, has created. Cooperation belongs to the number of these apparatuses, which develops all the more the higher a country stands at the level of capitalist development. To our cooperation we have set the task of embracing the entire country. Cooperation has hitherto embraced the upper strata, gave advantages to those who have the means to pay membership dues, did not give the working masses the opportunity to make use of its services. With this cooperation we have decisively broken, but not in such a way as to make cooperation altogether worthless, rather we gave cooperation in March and April of 1918 the task of embracing the entire population. If there are cooperators who value the precepts of the founders of the cooperative movement (the old tasks of cooperation—satisfaction of the interests of working people)—they must sympathize with this. And we are confident that we have on our side the sympathy of the majority of participants in cooperative organizations, although we make not the slightest illusion for ourselves that we have won the sympathy of the majority of leaders of cooperation, who stand on bourgeois and petty bourgeois points of view, who understand by cooperation only a new form of capitalist entrepreneurship and the notorious "freedom of trade," which means gain for the few, ruin for the majority. Instead of this, we declared it a state task for cooperation to transition to genuinely serving the working masses, in order that cooperation would embrace the entire population. This could not be done all at once. Having set such a task, we have worked systematically and will continue working in order to bring this matter to completion, in order that the entire population be united by cooperatives, and we can say with confidence that the entire Soviet Republic, perhaps in several weeks, perhaps in a small number of months, will transform into one great cooperative of the working people. After this, the development of the self-activity of working people, their attraction to construction will proceed in wider frames.

To complete this, we have resolved that all types of cooperatives—not only consumer cooperatives, but also credit cooperatives, production cooperatives, etc.—be united with proper gradualness and caution in the Central Union of Cooperatives. In this regard, the steps we have undertaken, we are confident, will meet the support of the Central Executive Committee and workers on the ground, who, after the formal completion of the unification of cooperatives, by their work of economic construction and attraction to it of the majority of workers and peasants will achieve that—this we set as one of the most important tasks—that cooperation turn out to be, among other things, the most important factor in the struggle against bureaucratism, which has been inherited from the old capitalist state, the struggle which we have declared an important task in our program. And we will conduct this struggle in all departments, by all means, and among other things, by means of cooperative unification and by appealing from bourgeois cooperative upper strata to genuine working masses, all of whom must go into independent work on cooperative construction.

Then I wish to note from questions of internal construction what was done in the field of agriculture. For the purpose of regulating land use, the People's Commissar of Agriculture in July 1919 issued a circular on measures of struggle against frequent repartitions of allotment land. This circular was published on July 1 in the "Izvestiya of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee" and entered the "Collection of Laws and Decrees of the Workers' and Peasants' Government." This circular is important because it responds to numerous indications and statements from peasants, pointing out that frequent repartitions hindered in the situation of small-scale farming the raising of labor discipline, the raising of labor productivity. The Council of People's Commissars takes the same point of view, and has given the Commissariat of Agriculture the task of submitting a draft statute on the order of repartitions. This draft will be examined in the near future{47}. Likewise, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture sets itself the task of a number of urgent measures for the restoration of living and dead economic property. In this regard, systematic work by local workers is of great significance, and we hope that members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee will exert appropriate pressure on the authorities and provide assistance so that these measures of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture be carried out in the shortest possible time.

I now turn to the last question of our construction and, in essence, to the most important question—the question of labor armies and labor mobilization. The most difficult task in sharp transitions and changes of public life is the task to take account of the peculiarity of each transition. How to fight as socialists inside capitalist society—this is not a difficult task, and it has long been solved. How to imagine a developed socialist society—this too is not difficult. This task too has been solved. But how practically to carry out the transition from the old, familiar, well-known capitalism to the new, not yet born, lacking a solid base, socialism—here is the most difficult task. This transition will take many years at best. Within this period our policy divides into a number of even smaller transitions. And all the difficulty of the task which falls upon us, all the difficulty of policy and all the art of policy consists in taking account of the peculiar tasks of each such transition.

We have only just resolved, in main and essential features, although still not completely, the task of war. We set ourselves the task to repel the assault of the White Guards at any cost. We said: everything must be ours for war. This was correct policy. We know perfectly well that this policy expressed itself in unprecedented hardships in the rear, cold, hunger, ruin, but it is precisely the circumstance that the Red Army, meeting, among other things, such an evaluation, examples of which I have read, solved this task in the most backward country—proves that there are new forces in this country; otherwise it would be unthinkable to create this exemplary army and achieve victory over armies materially more powerful. But after we sharpened the entire state apparatus toward this and succeeded in solving the peculiarity of this task—to subordinate everything entirely to the interests of war—the situation demands a quick and sharp transition. The war is not yet finished. We must preserve all military readiness; we must destroy Denikin's troops; we must show landowners and capitalists of any country that, if they wish to reckon with Russia by war, they will suffer the same fate as Kolchak and Denikin. Therefore we cannot take even a single step to weaken our military forces. And at the same time we must transfer the entire country onto new tracks, rebuild the entire mechanism. It is impossible to continue and unnecessary to sharpen—everything for war—because essentially the task of war is solved.

There appears the task of transition from war to peaceful construction under circumstances so